Palace, byre, hovel — poverty and pride —
Side by side;
And, above the packed and pestilential town,
Death looked down.
But the Rulers in that City by the Sea
Turned to flee —
Fled, with each returning spring-tide from its ills
To the Hills.
From the clammy fogs of morning, from the blaze
Of old days,
From the sickness of the noontide, from the heat,
Beat retreat;
For the country from Peshawur to Ceylon
Was their own.
But the Merchant risked the perils of the Plain
For his gain.
Now the resting-place of Charnock, ‘neath the palms,
Asks an alms,
And the burden of its lamentation is, Briefly, this:
“Because for certain months, we boil and stew,
So should you.
Cast the Viceroy and his Council, to perspire
In our fire!”
And for answer to the argument, in vain
We explain
That an amateur Saint Lawrence cannot fry:
“All must fry!”
That the Merchant risks the perils of the Plain
For gain.
Nor can Rulers rule a house that men grow rich in,
From its kitchen.
Let the Babu drop inflammatory hints
In his prints;
And mature — consistent soul — his plan for stealing
To Darjeeling:
Let the Merchant seek, who makes his silver pile,
England’s isle;
Let the City Charnock pitched on — evil day!
Go Her way.
Though the argosies of Asia at Her doors
Heap their stores,
Though Her enterprise and energy secure
Income sure,
Though “out-station orders punctually obeyed”
Swell Her trade —
Still, for rule, administration, and the rest,
Simla’s best.
Tarrant Moss
I closed and drew for my love’s sake
That now is false to me,
And I slew the Reiver of Tarrant Moss
And set Dumeny free.
They have gone down, they have gone down,
They are standing all arow —
Twenty knights in the peat-water,
That never struck a blow!
Their armour shall not dull nor rust,
Their flesh shall not decay,
For Tarrant Moss holds them in trust,
Until the Judgment Day.
Their soul went from them in their youth,
Ah God, that mine had gone,
Whenas I leaned on my love’s truth
And not on my sword alone!
Whenas I leaned on lad’s belief
And not on my naked blade —
And I slew a thief, and an honest thief,
For the sake of a worthless maid.
They have laid the Reiver low in his place,
They have set me up on high,
But the twenty knights in the peat-water
Are luckier than I!
And ever they give me gold and praise
And ever I mourn my loss —
For I struck the blow for my false love’s sake
And not for the Men of the: Moss!
Things and the Man
(In Memoriam, Joseph Chamberlain)
1904
“And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren
and they hated him yet the more.” — Genesis xxxvii. 5.
Oh ye who hold the written clue
To all save all unwritten things,
And, half a league behind, pursue
The accomplished Fact with flouts and flings,
Look! To your knee your baby brings
The oldest tale since Earth began —
The answer to your worryings:
“Once on a time there was a Man.”
He, single-handed, met and slew
Magicians, Armies, Ogres, Kings.
He lonely ‘mid his doubting crew —
“In all the loneliness of wings “ —
He fed the flame, he filled the springs,
He locked the ranks, he launched the van
Straight at the grinning Teeth of Things.
“Once on a time there was a Man.”
The peace of shocked Foundations flew
Before his ribald questionings.
He broke the Oracles in two,
And bared the paltry wires and strings.
He headed desert wanderings;
He led his soul, his cause, his clan
A little from the ruck of Things.
“Once on a time there was a Man.”
Thrones, Powers, Dominions block the view
With episodes and underlings —
The meek historian deems them true
Nor heeds the song that Clio sings —
The simple central truth that stings
The mob to boo, the priest to ban;
Things never yet created things —
“Once on a time there was a Man.”
A bolt is fallen from the blue.
A wakened realm full circle swings
Where Dothan’s dreamer dreams anew
Of vast and farborne harvestings;
And unto him an Empire clings
That grips the purpose of his plan.
My Lords, how think you of these things?
Once — in our time — is there a Man?
The Thorkild’s Song
“The Knights of the Joyous Venture”
— Puck of Pook’s Hill
There’s no wind along these seas,
Out oars for Stavenger!
Forward all for Stavenger!
So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
Let fall for Stavenger!
A long pull for Stavenger!
Oh, hear the benches creak and strain!
(A long pull for Stavenger!)
She thinks she smells the Northland rain!
(A long pull for Stavenger!)
She thinks she smells the Northland snow,
And she’s as glad as we to go,
She thinks she smells the Northland rime,
And the dear dark nights of winter-time.
She wants to be at her own home pier,
To shift her sails and standing gear.
She wants to be in her winter-shed,
To strip herself and go to bed,
Her very bolts are sick for shore,
And we-we want it ten times more!
So all you Gods that love brave men,
Send us a three-reef gale again!
Send us a gale, and watch us come,
With close-cropped canvas slashing home!
But
— there’s no wind on all these seas,
A long pull for Stavenger!
So we must wake the white-ash breeze,
A long pull for Stavenger!
The Thousandth Man
“SIMPLE SIMON” — REWARDS AND FAIRIES
One man in a thousand, Solomon says,
Will stick more close than a brother.
And it’s worth while seeking him half your days
If you find him before the other.
Nine nundred and ninety-nine depend
On what the world sees in you,
But the Thousandth man will stand your friend
With the whole round world agin you.
‘Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show
Will settle the finding for ‘ee.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em go
By your looks, or your acts, or your glory.
But if he finds you and you find him.
The rest of the world don’t matter;
For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim
W
ith you in any water.
You can use his purse with no more talk
Than he uses yours for his spendings,
And laugh and meet in your daily walk
As though there had been no lendings.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em call
For silver and gold in their dealings;
But the Thousandth Man h’s worth ‘em all,
Because you can show him your feelings.
His wrong’s your wrong, and his right’s your right,
In season or out of season.
Stand up and back it in all men’s sight —
With that for your only reason!
Nine hundred and ninety-nine can’t bide
The shame or mocking or laughter,
But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side
To the gallows-foot — and after!
The Three-Decker
1894
“The three-volume novel is extinct.”
Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.
It took a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail;
But, spite all modern notions, I’ve found her first and best –
The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.
Fair held the breeze behind us – ‘twas warm with lover’s prayers,
We’d stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.
They shipped as Able Bastards till the Wicked Nurse confessed,
And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.
By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook,
Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our titled berths we took
With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed,
And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.
We asked no social questions – we pumped no hidden shame –
We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came:
We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in Hell.
We weren’t exactly Yussufs, but – Zuleika didn’t tell.
No moral doubts assailed us, so when the port we neared,
The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.
‘Twas fiddle in the foc’s’le – ‘twas garlands on the mast,
For every one was married, and I went at shore at last.
I left ‘em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.
I left the lovers loving and parents signing cheques.
In endless English comfort, by county-folk caressed,
I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest! . . .
That route is barred to steamers: you’ll never lift again
Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.
They’re just beyond your skyline, howe’er so far you cruise,
In a ram-you-damn-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.
Swing round your aching searchlight – ‘twill show no haven’s peace.
Ay, blow your shrieking sirens at the deaf, grey-bearded seas!
Boom our the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep’s unrest –
And you aren’t one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest.
But when you’re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,
At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale,
Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,
You’ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.
You’ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread;
You’ll hear the long-drawn thunder ‘neath her leaping figure-head;
While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine
Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!
Hull down – hull down and under – she dwindles to a speck,
With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck.
All’s well – all’s well aboard her – she’s left you far behind,
With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.
Her crews are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make?
You’re manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming’s sake?
Well, tinker up your engines – you know your business best –
She’s taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest!
A Three-Part Song
I’m just in love with all these three,
The Weald and the Marsh and the Down country.
Nor I don’t know which I love the most,
The Weald or the Marsh or the white Chalk coast!
I’ve buried my heart in a ferny hill,
Twix’ a liddle low shaw an’ a great high gill.
Oh hop-bine yaller an’ wood-smoke blue,
I reckon you’ll keep her middling true!
I’ve loosed my mind for to out and run
On a Marsh that was old when Kings begun.
Oh Romney Level and Brenzett reeds,
I reckon you know what my mind needs!
I’ve given my soul to the Southdown grass,
And sheep-bells tinkled where you pass.
Oh Firle an’ Ditchling an’ sails at sea,
I reckon you keep my soul for me!
The Threshold
“Unprofessional”
From “Limits and Renewals” (1932)
In their deepest caverns of limestone
They pictured the Gods of Food —
The Horse, the Elk, and the Bison
That the hunting might be good;
With the Gods of Death and Terror —
The Mammoth, Tiger, and Bear.
And the pictures moved in the torchlight
To show that the Gods were there!
But that was before Ionia —
(Or the Seven Holy Islands of Ionia)
Any of the Mountains of Ionia,
Had bared their peaks to the air.
The close years packed behind them,
As the glaciers bite and grind,
Filling the new-gouged valleys
With Gods of every kind.
Gods of all-reaching power —
Gods of all-searching eyes —
But each to be wooed by worship
And won by sacrifice.
Till, after many winters, rose Ionia —
(Strange men brooding in Ionia)
Crystal-eyed Sages of Ionia
Who said, “These tales are lies.
“We dream one Breath in all things,
“That blows all things between.
“We dream one Matter in all things —
“Eternal, changeless, unseen.
“‘That the heart of the Matter is single
“Till the Breath shall bid it bring forth —
“By choosing or losing its neighbour —
“All things made upon Earth.”
But Earth was wiser than Ionia
(Babylon and Egypt than Ionia)
And they overlaid the teaching of Ionia
And the Truth was choked at birth.
It died at the Gate of Knowledge —
The Key to the Gate in its hand —
And the anxious priests and wizards
Re-blinded the wakening land;
For they showed, by answering echoes,
And chasing clouds as they rose,
How shadows should stand for bulwarks
Between mankind and its woes.
It was then that men bethought them of Ionia
(The few that had not allforgot Ionia)
Or the Word that was whispered in Ionia;
And they turned from the shadows and the shows.
They found one Breath in all things,
That moves all things between.
They proved one Matter in all things —
Eternal, changeless, unseen;
That the heart of the Matter was single
Till the Br
eath should bid it bring forth —
Even as men whispered in Ionia,
(Resolute, unsatisfied Ionia)
Ere the Word was stifled in Ionia —
All things known upon earth!
Tin Fish
1914-18
Sea Warfare
The ships destroy us above
And ensnare us beneath.
We arise, we lie down, and we
In the belly of Death.
The ships have a thousand eyes
To mark where we come . . .
But the mirth of a seaport dies
When our blow gets home.
To the City of Bombay (Dedication)
The Cities are full of pride, Challenging each to each — This from her mountain-side, That from her burdened beach. They count their ships full tale — Their corn and oil and wine, Derrick and loom and bale, And ramparts’ gun-flecked line; City by City they hail: “Hast aught to match with mine?” And the men that breed from them They traffic up and down, But cling to their cities’ hem As a child to the mother’s gown; When they talk with the stranger bands, Dazed and newly alone; When they walk in the stranger lands, By roaring streets unknown; Blessing her where she stands For strength above their own. (On high to hold her fame That stands all fame beyond, By oath to back the same, Most faithful-foolish-fond; Making her mere-breathed name Their bond upon their bond.) So thank I God my birth Fell not in isles aside — Waste headlands of the earth, Or warring tribes untried — But that she lent me worth And gave me right to pride. Surely in toil or fray Under an alien sky, Comfort it is to say: “Of no mean city am I!” (Neither by service nor fee Come I to mine estate — Mother of Cities to me, But I was born in her gate, Between the palms and the sea, Where the world-end steamers wait.) Now for this debt I owe, And for her far-borne cheer Must I make haste and go With tribute to her pier. And she shall touch and remit After the use of kings (Orderly, ancient, fit) My deep-sea plunderings, And purchase in all lands. And this we do for a sign Her power is over mine, And mine I hold at her hands!
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 812